Johnson County Green Party Business Meeting
Wednesday, December 17th, 2003
7:00 p.m.
Iowa City Public Library, Room C

Attendance: Barbara Hackmann, Holly Hart, Florence Boos, William Boos, Megan
Woodland, Jim Walters, Joannes Pool

Petitions for Daryl Northrop for U. S. Senate and for the Municipal Utility ballot
initiative were available to sign and take, as well as a brochure for the Northrop campaign.

Agenda
Northrop Campaign
Planning for Green Caucus
Proposals for Iowa Green Party Presidential candidate selection; national GP convention
delegate selection
Proposal to host the 2004 Iowa Green Party state convention
Iowa Green Party News & Views

I. IAGP News and Views. Counties are being reminded to submit news to David Larson for the Iowa Green Party e-newsletter. Holly will send an update of Johnson County Green Party activities and a rundown of University of Iowa Campus Green activities and plans.

II. Northrop Campaign. Discussed help petitioning, and how and where to petition. We will contact Campus Greens and ask if they can set up a table in the IMU. Taking petitions door to door is another possibility (it's too cold for a table on the pedestrian mall!). We mentioned th possibility of asking Greens and others currently involved with the Kucinich campaignb for signatrues and help gathering signatures. Some of us will try to gather signatures outside Old Brick before Howard Dean's Saturday evening appearance. The Johnson County Green Party will aim to gather 1000 signatures. We discussed inviting Daryl Nortrhop to visit the area, and suggested that we plan an event in which he could take part, possibly inviting him to our caucus.

III. Johnson County Green Party Caucus: This will be the "first in the nation!" We decided to hold it at The Mill as a fundraiser, Sunday, January 18, starting about 4 p.m. Members will look into finding musicians willing to perform. We will send out a media release. Barbara kindly offered to make a contribution toward the expenses of publicizing the caucus.

IV. Presidential candidate selection.

We decided on this plan, which will be forwarded to Iowa Green Party state co-chairs with the request for all counteis to consider, as we should use the same ballot: We will include all current Green candidates and their bios and instructions on voting; and we will use ranked voting. Since this doesn't need to be a secret ballot, absentee ballots from Johnson and unorganized counties may be sent to our usual p.o. box in Iowa City; Greens in organized counties will send ballots to their respective designated county contacts (it's suggested ballots should be opened in the presence of several people). We will request that absentee ballots be returned by a specified date. Jim, Joannes and Holly will gather candidate bio information, send to Jim who will create a ballot.

[Please see amended and simplified procedure in minutes for January 2004.]

For Greens in unorganized counties, Megan suggested posting on our website the candidate information, and a ballot which can be printed and mailed, along with voter's name and address, to our p.o. box. We will check the voter's contact infomation with our registration database, to avoid any ballot spamming.

For Johnson County, Holly will find out from John Deeth (auditor's office) who among formerly registered Johnson County Greens have not registered in another party; we will send a mailing to these people with the ballot, and request that it be returned by a specified date.

V. We reviewed possible options for the selection of delegates to the national convention. We agreed to forward the various options to the Iowa Green Party co-chairs and state, and propose that the Iowa Green Party members choose what they prefer. (Iowa Green Party co-chairs will floor-manage?)

VI. State Convention. The Johnson County Green Party will offer to host the 2004 Iowa State Green Party state convention, but will defer to another city if someone else wants to do it.

NEXT MEETING: Wednesday, JANUARY 7th, 7 p.m. - location Iowa City Public Library, Room C.